


How Dare You

by NullNoMore



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles X
Genre: Child Neglect, Coffee date, Fanfiction, Halloween, International Fanworks Day 2020, Lila Brown AU, but that was a long time ago on another planet, demonic spider house (mentioned), just because I don't understand tags doesn't mean I can't enjoy them, poofy princess costumes, postgame, sadly not for Vandham, skell fanfiction, unsupportable backstory for Vandham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22746736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NullNoMore/pseuds/NullNoMore
Summary: Vandham wrote a story for Lin's skell fanzine. His former teammate and former special friend Lila Brown is convinced that he used her as an inspiration. She is not flattered. Far from it. In the process of clearing that whole thing up over coffee, they share memories of their lives on Earth.All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, but Lila Brown and a large amount of backstory is mine. A small contribution for International Fanworks Day 2020.
Relationships: Jack Vandham & Lila Brown
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	How Dare You

**Author's Note:**

> I built a girlfriend for Vandham, Ms. Lila Brown, former shipmate and current manager of a skell refueling station over by the West Gate. Things were going nicely, flowers and fluff and everything. Then they broke up in the most dramatic way possible, full of amnesia and reanimation. 
> 
> This is not that story. This is a story of the period following, when they tried to become friends again.

Commander Vandham was having his standard 0600 coffee, perching at the regrettably tiny table in Barista Court. What wasn't standard was the company. That was a recent weekly addition. Every Thursday, he and Lila Brown had been sharing a morning coffee, not for any business or ECP or BLADE purposes. They were there to chat and prepare for the day, and also to explore, very gingerly, the fragile friendship they were attempting.

He hadn't been surprised to learn that this was an old habit, a hold-over from the period in his life of which he had absolutely no memory. He'd seen the careful notation of "coffee" and more rarely "no coffee" in the records of that lost life. But only on Thursdays. Since his release from the Mim Maintenance Center, he'd hit the Court every day, and they were never surprised to see him. So why did Thursday mornings warrant a special note? He hadn't known why, but he'd kept the slot open, lingering a little longer, waiting for something he couldn't guess. It didn't surprise him to learn he'd been unwittingly holding that time open for Lila. He didn't mention it to her. He didn't need to pressure her with the fact that even if his memories had been removed, she still played a role in his life.

Point was, he was here, and she was sitting across from him, just friends, and they'd managed to do this three weeks in a row. It gave him hope for something he would never admit to hoping for.  
And yet ... and yet ...

It was easy to ignore that hope this morning. Looking at her, it didn't take a Mediator to figure something was wrong. Lila's mouth was pinched so tight, her lips were threatening to disappear. She had ordered coffee, black, sharply, instead of asking for tea, heavy on the milk, with a generous glance of thanks to the server. She was having trouble looking at him. Every time she'd try, her glance seemed to slip away, and she'd press her lips harder.

Vandham recognized these signs. He'd seen them on the Whale. She was itching for a fight, but she wasn't sure of herself. If she'd known she was in the right, she'd have launched into the topic, whatever it was, even as she popping into her seat. She'd have had a smile hiding in her eyes, because she wanted to tell him off about whatever it was. Staffing levels, r&r schedules, inventory, she'd spew it out, smile in a way that warmed him to the core, and contentedly wait for him to say aye or nay. All too often it resulted in him grunting that the topic was nothing new and that he was still trying to pound out the resources to solve it, thanks for the nagging. A few times she had surprised him, and he'd gratefully scrambled to fix a thing he hadn't seen coming.

But this behavior, eyes wavering and mouth tight, this was rare. This was a Lila that was working very hard not to show her hand, not to tell him something she was trying and failing to solve herself. Something she was frightened to bring up but more frightened not to mention. She was trusting him to start the conversation, brutally if necessary.

On the Whale, he'd have done it, and fast, because there wasn't time for patience when everything had been knocked hard during the escape and some of the ship systems were only half-built at launch. They couldn't be careful of teammates' weaknesses. Luckily, Lila wasn't weak, although Mira had changed her. She was capable of being hurt in a way she wouldn't have allowed on the Whale. Or maybe she was willing to show him now.

Again, he was letting his brain wander away from the problem at hand. She needed him to signal that he was ready to listen. He tried to smooth his natural gravel when he spoke. "What is it?'

"How dare you!" she hissed quietly. She glanced around, as if worried that they might be overheard, and leaned low over the table. "How dare you use something from my files for a ... a story." She spat the last word out like something slimy and disgusting.

"Your files--?"

"My personnel files. You took them and used them for ..." She broke off as a waitress passed. In that one second, she pulled her dignity together. Her voice lost its anguish but the bitterness remained. "I don't have a lot of good memories from back then, but that Halloween costume was everything I wanted as a kid. It was shiny and yellow and I thought I looked beautiful." She smiled, or tried to. "But I probably looked just as stupid as you said." The smile wavered, returned, and became fixed.

Vandham was not comforted, but at least it was starting to make sense now. The latest issue of Pretty Skell (N)e(x)t had released the day before, in time for the scariest of seasons, and Vandham had, to his great embarrassment and greater surprise, contributed a short story, full of gothic horror and plucky trick-or-treaters and an abandoned house containing malevolent spiders. So very many spiders. "This is about that Halloween thing I wrote for Lin's 'zine?"

"Yes. What else?"

"Lila, I didn't read your files." He stopped and corrected himself. "Yes, sure, I've read your files, but there was nothing like that in them. I sure as hell wasn't writing about you. That was a story I used to tell my nephew; it says so in the description at the end. That story happened years, decades almost, before I met you. A decade and a half at least."

"Oh." Lila's eyes were still pained. "I didn't see that part," she admitted quietly.

"It was right there."

"I sort of stopped reading."

"Okay."

"I sort of wanted to keep my head from exploding." She gave a small fake laugh. Her posture was stiff and withdrawn, but her eyes pleaded with him to understand. "And here I am, doing exactly that. I'm sorry, sir."

He reached over the table and placed a palm over her hand. It wasn't much of a stretch, but he leaned in anyway. "Listen. If you ever get a hint that someone's messing with your files, let me know."

"I can handle myself."

"I know that. But they may get cute ideas about messing with someone less prepared, and I am not having that in my city." He gave her hand a bracing squeeze and was glad to feel her return the grip. He'd have let go immediately, except she didn't release her hold on the edge of his fingers. In fact, the pressure increased to something like tightness. He held on and waited.

"My mother wasn't great at being a mom," Lila began. "She was dreadful, actually. I went without a lot of stuff. Food even, sometimes. Some kids react to that by asking for everything. Ask enough and maybe you get something, you know? But I was different, or at least that's what I thought I was." Her eyes had drifted away, backwards in time."I was probably just as pesky as any 5 year old, but in my head I thought I was being quiet. I honestly didn't think I had said a word about the costume. So when she came home with it, it was like a miracle. She had known, and she cared enough to get it right."

He could see the glow of that wonder in her face. She gripped his hand and lost herself to joy. "I loved it. I loved the shiny clip-on crown that I lost immediately. I loved the cheap plastic slippers that were way too cold and gave me blisters. I loved the yards and yards of cheap yellow silk. It was perfect. I thought I looked beautiful." She said that last word reverently.

He squeezed her hand a smidge. "You in a yellow poofy Cinderella dress. I can see it."

"Belle. It was Belle." Her gaze had snapped back to the surface.

"There's a difference?"

"Yes. They're all color coded, the princesses. Cinderella is blue, Belle is yellow."

"Pink?" he quizzed her.

"Sleeping Beauty," she said immediately. "Princess culture was very important for kindergartners. There was a princess for everyone."

"So not Cinderella."

"Cinderella liked mice," she sniffed and gave a tiny but dramatic shudder. "Belle liked books and ..." She glanced hard at him and stopped suddenly.

"None of them liked robots?"

"The silver one, I think, but I was too old to care by then." Her voice was drifting away again. "My mom, she did the whole thing right. We went trick-or-treating with some neighbor kids. It was amazing. There was so much candy. Jack, you wouldn't believe how much candy there was!" Her eyes sparkled, urging him to believe the impossible. "I could barely carry the bag, it was so heavy! Then we went to another house and there was a party. There were cookies and cider and so many kids." Her eyelids fluttered shut and she leaned forward, across a tiny cafe table and into her memories. "And I was there in my beautiful costume."

Her head drooped. Vandham knew what was coming. He _had_ read her files, after all.

"I went to stay with my grandparents after that, and my mom stopped being my mom. I don't know what happened to the costume." She opened her eyes and sat up slowly. "But for that one night, she had tried and it had been perfect." She breathed deeply and stared at him. "Something doesn't have to last to be wonderful." He could hear the challenge in her voice, daring him to argue.

"I was only stationed near my sister for a couple of months," he blurted. "Not long at all. But a couple times a week we'd have Jacks' Night Out. Me and my nephew, Jack and Jack, we'd go wild. Ignore the healthy stuff my sister sent along, grab just the worst crap from the frozen section of the supermarket, and then we'd hang out."

Now it was Lila that was holding tightly to his hand, but he wasn't paying attention to that. "It was mostly to give my sister and brother-in-law a breather. My niece, she needed so much help then. But I was glad to do it. I loved ... I loved it.

"That kid could talk. Non-stop, about his friends and his games and the stuff he'd seen on the internet. He didn't stop when we ate or when we watched videos. He didn't stop to breathe. Somebody should have shot me, the stuff we watched. Monsters, vampires, serial killers. What was I thinking? I wasn't. I was the cool uncle and we were having a blast." He huffed quietly at his younger self.

"Then I'd tuck him in, and before he went to sleep I had to tell him a bedtime story. He was too old for it, sure, but he wanted me to do it and I was glad to. It was easy. He always told me exactly what should happen. I just told them the way he wanted. He was always the hero. Sometimes I'd slip in other things, kids that he knew, that I knew, but mostly it was all him. The one with the spider house was one of his favorites."

He glared at her and this time he felt the squeeze she gave him in return. "I hadn't thought about it in years, Lila. I hit the barracks to grab some coffee and maybe some pie, and Lin and Alexa were going on about their 'zine. That story came back as a chunk. I practically barfed it out. That story had nothing to do with you, honest." They stayed motionless for a moment, their foreheads less than a hand-span apart, a squeeze flickering between their curled fingers.

"I suppose I could end up in worse stories." She released his hand suddenly. They leaned away from each other, faces friendly and unconcerned.

He grinned, flashing massive teeth under his mustache, and waved an unconcerned arm around, almost flooring a passing Harrier. “You should finish reading the story. That character did pretty good, for a baby. Fights off a bunch of the spiders before Jack rescues her."

"Maybe I will, if I have time. There's a mess of new customers scheduled for the next few days." She pushed away her untouched mug. "I should be getting back to the refueling station."

"Still going to the Day of the Dead thing at the Repenta?" he asked as she stood up.

"Probably on Saturday, but maybe not until later. Are you going?"

"Don't know. I'll see ya if I see ya."

_Later that day: [note on the margin of a memo from an endless meeting: Saturday, clear 2000-2400] [text sent to Mall Cruz: re: dress #52.8-4, does it come in yellow??]_

**Author's Note:**

> All my other stuff is over on fanfiction dot net. You want fluff? "The Lily and the BLADE", all 66k of it. You want the breakup/angst/amnesia? Yeah, haven't written that yet, but I will scream about it on request.
> 
> You want to see the story that Vandham wrote? "Don't You Dare." It has spiders, so many spiders.
> 
> If you think they are pining for each other, you are right.


End file.
